A California man who left a message threatening to kill Republican Representative Matt Gaetz was sentenced to house arrest and fined $10,000 on Thursday, prosecutors said.
Eugene Huelsman left voicemail for Gaetz, R-Fla., Jan. 9, 2021, three days after a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol.
Huelsman, 59, of Thousand Oaks near Los Angeles, said, in part, “I’m going to shoot you,” and he called Gaetz a “tyrant,” according to court documents.
Huelsman pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting a threat in interstate commerce in April.
He was sentenced to six months house arrest and five years probation and a $10,000 fine, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida said.
Huelsman’s attorney, Curtis Fallgatter, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening. He said Huelsman did not intend to take the threat at face value and was “just outraged by the attack on the Capitol.”
U.S. Attorney Jason R. Coody said in a statement that the sentence “should serve as a significant deterrent to those who threaten to use violence against others rather than engage in legal debate.”
The number of threats or potential threats sent to members of Congress has been increasing for years, according to the United States Capitol Police. There were about 9,600 in 2021, Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said. In 2017, there were about 3,900.
A 67-year-old Florida man was sentenced to probation and fined $7,000 this month for threatening via email to kill Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., in 2019.
Others received prison sentences. In April, an Alaskan man was sentenced to three years in prison for threatening to kill the state’s two US senators, and in December, a man who threatened to hang lawmakers unless they argue Trump was sentenced to more than two years.
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